In theory, random draws are a wonderful idea. Think of the excitement that FA Cup third round day brings, or at least used to. Minnows getting rewarded for early round success with a plum tie away to a giant club, or local rivals clashing in the cup for first time in years; all this from the random union of Trevor Brooking’s #35 with Jimmy Hill’s #63.
There is, alas, a problem with such a format which is particularly accentuated in a small competition rather lacking in star names. Such as, say, the World Grand Prix snooker. The hook of this 32-man event is the random draw that follows each of the first four rounds. Unlike all other snooker ranking events, the cosseted top-16 ranked players are not protected from each other. And so it came to pass that the 2009 Grand Prix’s two recognisable stars, Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins, clashed in a 2nd round contest that pitted the reigning World Number One against the current World Champion.
From a sporting, and spread betting, point of view the contest was intriguing. The market consensus had O’Sullivan as a warm favourite against Higgins the hometown hero. In my humble punting opinion, this didn’t sit right. Higgins has experienced considerable success against Ronnie over the course of their careers and is clearly one of the (few) players that the Rocket truly respects in the game. True, their only meeting this season, in the Shanghai Masters semi-finals, had resulted in an easy 6-1 win for O’Sullivan, and when pricing up any Ronnie match you always have to factor in the possibility that he will come out in such a mood that makes him simply unplayable.
Nonetheless Higgins looked in far better nick than O’Sullivan in their respective first round matches, and is simply the more reliable player from a punting perspective – far less likely to have an off-day or play half the match left-handed to make snooker more ‘fun’. And if that wasn’t enough, you only had to read O’Sullivan’s interview to see how mentally unstable he is feeling at the moment (sample quote: “The longer I can stay playing the game without feeling like I want to commit suicide, the better”).
While O’Sullivan can be prone to melodrama, this isn’t the most encouraging thing to hear before backing a player. And so I quite confidently SOLD O’SULLIVAN’S 25:0 AT 14.25 – a fixed-odds type bet with only a win or lose outcome since, as fun as supremacies markets such as the ‘10/3’ can be, they’re downright scary when you’re getting against the most talented player to ever grace the game.
The match itself was a nip and tuck affair, featuring both impressive break-building (such as the 131 from Ronnie to open up proceedings) and some surprisingly poor misses. They went into the mid-session interval at two-apiece and before Ronnie took a 4-3 lead with a typically fluent 67 break. At 50-6 up and only a couple of pots away from the match, Ronnie cued across an unbelievably simple, straight red handing Higgins a lifeline.
I later found out that O’Sullivan had traded at 1.01 for the match on the betting exchanges just before this miss, leaving some short-odds backers feeling very green indeed. Higgins, consummate professional that he is, capitalised on Ronnie’s mistake, sealing the frame 58-56 before compiling a quite magnificent 94 break in the decider to squeak the match 5-4.
I’ve had a few bets trade at 1.01 before losing in the past, so it was wonderful to have the opposite occur for once. In the grander scheme of things, the match was a fair indicator as to why O’Sullivan, as supremely skilled as he is, can never be considered the type of ‘banker’ Phil Taylor or Tiger Woods represent in their own sports. In many ways, it’s impressive that a man who has admitted suffering from demons has managed to carve out such a memorable career in this most mentally challenging of sports. But as distasteful as it may seem to link mental health with betting profit, this does mean there’s never such thing as ‘free money’ when it comes to Ronnie O’Sullivan.
JW
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